patrick.net

Peter, are we considered commoners for liking cake?

"I don’t get the joke about premature withdrawl,"

Then you are a very lucky woman, Astrid

Peter, are we considered commoners for liking cake?

I afraid so.

Well, I guess some people don't know what they are missing.

Of course, once man has become wildly successful and tamed the environment, evolutionary pressure decreases — when the environment no longer presents a challenge, biological evolution slows down. However, there is a further social stratification process that tends to select for intelligence, for instance.

DS,

I'm not 100% sure that evolution has actually "slowed down". The same biological mechanisms most responsible for producing evolution in the past (genetic mutations, reproduction/sexual selection) are still very much in play. I just think it's possible that today's high-tech/predator-free environment is producing a very different set of factors that determine evolutionary success. Consider: Idiocracy

Huh? Cake or [apparently bad sex]?

I like layered cake. It looks very happy.

Vanilla bean cake, mmm

Harm, in your opinion will the population just become increasingly stratified with a troglite class, or will the human race itself collapse because of the lack of predators to clean the gene pool? Or will humanity sustain itself through technology as a hypochondriac race? Will humanity decay to become nothing but subprime borrowers?

Vanilla bean anything is good.

Vanilla bean can be used in savory dishes like fish.

HARM said: Consider: Idiocracy

Was anyone else disappointed with the movie? I thought the idea was very good and they could have done a lot with it, but it was very light and unsatisfying overall.

Cake, sex it's the same part of the brain.

lack of predators to clean the gene pool?

Perhaps predatory lending will clean up the gene pool.

Excellent sleeper movie "The Hoax". Not an action movie but so interesting it kept my focus.

DQ numbers are out for the Bay Area:

http://www.dqnews.com/RRBay0407.shtm

Looks like more of the same.

No, Congress needs a dirty gene pool for its own purposes. Nothing like masses of voter blocks tantalized by shiny things.

What will happen with evolution is unpredictable. There might an epidemic and the human population after that might be dominated by those who survive it.

In the absence of that, evolution will proceed as usual. Which males are healthy enough to live and are considered desirable by women will have many kids and so on.

What do you guys think about savory pastries?

That NYT "rent vs. buy" calculator is good, however, it doesn't include a scenario where you rent until prices stabilize and THEN buy in which case everything changes. No one really knows how long they are going to be living in a house, life throws a curve ball once in a while.

The bottom line is (and it doesn't even matter if renting costs get more expensive than buying costs) it will not be a good time to buy until prices stabilize. Prices are so far from the fundamentals and are losing the support that got them there. Prices have to not only stop falling, but they have to rise with inflation; this is the true bottom. If prices just stop falling, they can stay there for a decade or longer which means they are still falling in real value (with inflation).

I think after the steep fall, people are going to be very careful about throwing money at real estate like they recently were. I think it's probably going to take a decade or so to absorb all the inventory out there; so my prediction is that after prices stop falling nominally, they will just go sideways for a long time, at which point it is a good time to look for foreclosures.

One would think, but the people who seem to propogate don't seem to me to be the fittest or brightest.

What do you guys think about savory pastries?

I love the stuff. Tommy Toy's in SF has a "signature" Lobster Bisque pastry that's very good. South American meat pies are also very good.

"What do you guys think about savory pastries?"

I'm in favor of them.

Instead of Congress forcing the taxpayer maybe they should fine Yahoo and Google ... after all they are providing false and misleading advertising.

Just off Yahoo 5 min. ago... Is this a fixed rate 30 yr loan?
Of coarse not..
Plenty of Yahoo and Google Cash swimming on the
balance sheet. They can bail out the power slobs who got ripped off.

"$300,000 mortgage for $875/mo
Secured financing for your future. Lower payments/increase cash flow with Quicken Loans."

"Indicators of market distress are moving in different directions."

That's a new line for DataQuick.

Which males are healthy enough to live and are considered desirable by women will have many kids and so on.

That ain't so. Inferior male will have kids with inferior females just for the welfare checks before they are incarcerated.

The process is anti-evolutionary. It repeats over and over again before the world is dominated by inferior people.

I love the stuff. Tommy Toy’s in SF has a “signature” Lobster Bisque pastry that’s very good.

Most excellent!!!

"Perhaps predatory lending will clean up the gene pool"

We can always hope can't we?

I just keep trying to figure out who the "winners" in all of this might be? At the rate we're going, those that bought in 2003 will be under water shortly. Outside of a few select areas of the BA (or streets/homes) net of commissions you're bringing money to the closing, *not from. Unless FB paid MEW cash for that Harley (or elective surgery) and keeps it out of the BK it was just one "great while it lasted" wild ride?

Allah says:
If prices just stop falling, they can stay there for a decade or longer which means they are still falling in real value (with inflation).

IMO overall a good post for discussion. A slightly different perspective because price really only matters when buying or selling, what it does inbetween doesn't really matter. The intrinsic value is what you would otherwise rent it for, so if rents (almost by natural law rise with cost of living) even if the value of your house stays flat for a long period, its value to you rises in proportion to the rental market. My concern with some of what I read here is people think there will be a crater and they will then emulate the prior flipper generation. You need to spot value, not just a huge movement in price, and I can tell you foreclosure auctions, and sealed bids can be a good place, but auctions tend to mirror the general market as a benchmark.

One would think, but the people who seem to propogate don’t seem to me to be the fittest or brightest.

That's a common fallacy of evolutionary thought. Being the fittest or brightest is only important in getting you to the point where you can procreate and pass on your genetic material. Then, your genetic material must be able to survive to continue the cycle of procreation, ie, raising a kid to the point of passing on their genes.

The interesting fallout from this idea is that diseases and conditions that affect adults have relatively small evolutionary pressure. Heart disease, late-life cancer, even a penchant for gambling, suicide, or bad financial habits (read FB) have little impact. Our society amplifies this by creating a social support system (welfare) for those who can't do it on their own.

A classic example of this phenomenon in medicine is Huntington's Disease, a fatal neurologic movement disorder that doesn't present until mid-adulthood. By then, you've passed that genetic material to the next generation. Genetic counseling has changed that a bit, though.

Hence, "premature withdrawl" indeed is not only relevant here, but a major issue! :)

“Indicators of market distress are moving in different directions.”

That’s a new line for DataQuick.

lunarpark,

I noticed that one too. It's spin, IMO. All indicators are pointing towards bad. The one that is being spun as positive is that "financing with adjustable-rate mortgages is declining significantly." Well, Mr. Prentice you genius, that's because of the subprime implosion. If anything, it's the fallout of SEVERE market distress!

Re Evolution in modern society...

In our not to distant past (say, 1 million years ago up to about 1900s)

Educated and relatively wealthy individuals see that giving a lot of their resources to a small number of children will vastly increase that child's chances of being highly successful. A small number of highly invested children will generate a high chance of genes successfully passing on into the next generation. So few kids (but possibly many disavowed illigitmate children from the rich dads.), but very successful ones. Dividing a very large investment noticibly decreases each kids chances, so it pays to have a few highly invested kids. Even sultans with dozens of wives and swarms of kids only had one heir, and probably one or two backups. Dividing your kingdom amongst your kids is a sure way to have those smaller kingdoms gobbled up by non-divided kingdoms.

Poorly educated and, well, just poor indivuduals have nothing to invest in a child to increase its chances of being successful. At that point, a large number of children raises the chances of genes passing successfully into future generations. Have kids like crazy so you have spares when they drown/get worked to death/etc. Dividing the initial investment of 'not much' by 1/8th doesn't measurable chance their chances.

In today's society, there is little chance that ANY person, regardless of initial investment, will not survive to reproduce. So instinctive kid spewing by poor people and small families by rich people no longer makes any sort of evolutionary sense, but we still tend to do it because it made sense for so long.

On a random note, did anyone see this:

Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder. We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, "Stay the course."

Stay the course? You've got to be kidding. This is America, not the damned Titanic. I'll give you a sound bite: Throw the bums out!

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore. The President of the United States is given a free pass to ignore the Constitution, tap our phones, and lead us to war on a pack of lies. Congress responds to record deficits by passing a huge tax cut for the wealthy (thanks, but I don't need it). The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs. While we're fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving pom-poms instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of America my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

Written by Michael Moore?

Nope... it's Lee Iacocca's new book.

Check out the full snippet here:

http://www.bordersstores.com/features/feature.jsp?file=wherehavealltheleadersgone

Man this guy doesn't pull punches.

Skibum, of course you are right in a protected civilization. But in nature even after procreation, and you said it yourself, you have to raise the offspring. So even if the genetic disease were to hit after the fact if the parents are weaker and are eaten by something the offspring die too, and then that line is broken.

Will humanity decay to become nothing but subprime borrowers?

This would have to be very close to Patrick.net Hell.

I really don't know. Throughout human history, the least intelligent and educated are the ones who have always tended to breed the most, but they were also forced to compete hard for survival, which favored the best and brightest among them (who were most successful in passing along their genes to the next generation).

What's different today is, outside the third world there are few natural predators or other natural checks on population growth (famine, plague/pandemics). To add to the mix, people with serious genetic disorders (Down's, Cystic fibrosis, Huntington's, etc.) who would not have lived to puberty in any great numbers before modern medicine are now living well into adulthood and reproducing.

Governments could possibly institute a policy of selective breeding, or prehaps favor a less intrusive policy of disincentivizing breeding for the "least fit", but determining who is or is not "fit" to reproduce is a political and ethical minefield few politicians dare to enter. Ever since WWII and the Nazi's infamous attempts at eugenics/selective breeding, it's been pretty much taboo for polite society to openly discuss the matter. However, if our species ever becomes undeniable less and less fit biologically and mentally, at some point we may be forced to confront the issue. I think that day is still a long way off though.

"That ain’t so. Inferior male will have kids with inferior females just for the welfare checks before they are incarcerated."

In the old days, the dregs of society were round up and impressed into military service as fodder. A policy in use from the ancient Romans up to the Napolionic era.

The suspicious side of me thinks that LBJ had this in mind when he created "The Great Society." By running off fathers and paying the bottom end of society to breed, the Great Society Programs provided lots of "dreg" children to grow up to be soldiers in what LBJ may have seen as an upcoming war of attrition with the Soviets. I find it hard to believe that someone smart enough to be President could not forsee the problems that his style of welfare would produce, so I think it was the goal. Why not have created jobs, a la CCC?

Governments could possibly institute a policy of selective breeding, or prehaps favor a less intrusive policy of disincentivizing breeding for the “least fit”, but determining who is or is not “fit” to reproduce is a political and ethical minefield few politicians dare to enter.

How about a tax and welfare reform? Free market breeding.

I've had the same thoughts. Political correctness equates welfare reform to eugenics. This is similar to how I would view removing a tax break as being a tax increase I guess.

I'm all for selective breeding. Ok ladies line up I'm very selective.

SP

She did abide by my request, so let's give her a break from the harsh comparisons.

I like to entertain "theotherside" because I think she's actually quite smart. She clearly understands financial theory and application. I can buy her description of her background and credentials as legitimate. The only thing I'm not necessarily buying is her claim that she's not related to the real estate industry. I think she must have some stake in things beyond just being a homeowner. Maybe she's an investment banker responsible for selling MBS and CDOs to the market.

Arguing with her, for me, is not as pointless as arguing with some others. I get the distinct feeling she *knows* when one of her premises is invalid or fails to support her conclusion. That's why i get pissed at her, because I know she can do better than copy/paste arguments.

She is a very nice lady, and a polite debater.